The Save the Children Fund,[1] commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization that promotes children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries.[2] It was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 in order to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts.

In addition to the UK organisation, there are 30 other national Save the Children organisations who are members of Save the Children International, a global network of nonprofit organisations supporting local partners in over 120 countries around the world.

The Fight the Famine Council was initially started earlier in 1919 in order to put political pressure on the British government to end the blockade, the first meeting having been held at the home of Catherine Courtney, at 15 Cheyne Walk. However, on 15 April 1919, the sisters succeeded in separating itself from the politics of the Council and creating a separate “Save the Children Fund”.[4]

In May 1919, the Fund was publicly established at a meeting in London's Royal Albert Hall in order to "provide relief to children suffering the effects of war" and raise money for emergency aid to children suffering from the wartime shortages of food and supplies.[5]

In December 1919, Pope Benedict XV publicly announced his support for Save the Children, and declared 28 December 'Innocents Day' in order to collect donations[6]

The first branch was opened in Fife, Scotland in 1919. A counterpart, Rädda Barnen (which means "Save the Children"), was founded later that year in Sweden, and together with a number of other organizations, they founded the International Save the Children Union in Geneva on 6 January 1920. Jebb built up excellent relationships with other Geneva-based organisations, including the Red Cross who supported Save’s International foundation.[4]

Jebb used many ground-breaking fund-raising techniques, making Save the Children the first charity in the United Kingdom to use page-length advertisements in newspapers. Jebb contracted doctors, lawyers and other professionals in order to devise mass advertisement campaigns. In 1920, Save the Children started individual child sponsorship as a way to engage more donors. By the end of the year, Save the Children raised the equivalent to about £8,000,000 in today’s money.[6]

By August 1921, the UK Save the Children had raised over £1,000,000, and conditions for children in Central Europe were improving due to their efforts. However, the Russian famine of 1921 made Jebb realize that Save the Children must be a permanent organisation and that children's rights constantly need to be protected.[7] Their mission was thus changed to "an international effort to preserve child life wherever it is menaced by conditions of economic hardship and distress".[6]

From 1921 to 1923, Save the Children created press campaigns, propaganda movies and feeding centers in Russia and in Turkey in order to feed and educate thousands of refugees. They began to work with several other organisations such as the Russian Famine Relief Fund and Nansen which resulted in recognition by the League of Nations. Although Russia was largely closed off to international relief and aid, Save the Children persuaded Soviet authorities to let them have a ground presence.[4]

At home, the Daily Express criticised the Fund's work, denying the severity of the situation and claiming they should be helping their own people before helping Russia. The charity responded with increased publicity about the famine, showing images of starving children and mass graves. The campaign gained national appeal, eventually allowing the organisation to charter the SS Torcello off to Russia with 600 tons worth of relief supplies. Over 157 million rations were given out, saving nearly 300,000 children. Improved conditions meant Save the Children's Russian feeding program was able to be closed in the summer of 1923, after having won international acclaim.[4][8]

At the end of World War II, images of malnourished and sick children ran throughout Europe. Jebb and her sister worked to gain public sympathy in order to elicit support aid.[9] Save the Children staff were among the first into the liberated areas after World War II, working with refugee children and displaced persons in former occupied Europe, including survivors of Nazi concentration camps. At the same time, work in the United Kingdom focused on improving conditions for children growing up in cities devastated by bombing and facing huge disruptions in family life.[6]

The 1950s saw a continuation of this type of crisis-driven work, with additional demands for help following the Korean War and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, but also the opening of new work in Africa, Asia and the Middle East in response to the decline of the British empire.[6]

Like other aid agencies, Save the Children was active in the major disasters of the era—especially the Vietnam War and the Biafra secession in Nigeria. The latter brought shocking images of child starvation onto the television screens of the West for the first time in a major way. The sort of mass-marketing campaigns first used by Save the Children in the 1920s were repeated, with great success in fundraising.

Disasters in Ethiopia, Sudan, and many other world hotspots led to appeals which brought public donations on a huge scale, and a consequent expansion of the organisation's work. However, the children's rights-based approach to development originated by Jebb continues to be an important factor. It was used in a major campaign in the late 1990s against the use of child soldiers in Africa.[6]

During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone new cases outnumber the available hospital beds in the country. Save the Children is working with the U.K. government's Department for International Development and Ministry of Defence to build and run a 100 bed treatment center in Sierra Leone, as well as supporting an Interim Care Center in Kailahun for children who have lost their families to Ebola.[10]

In 1923, Jebb wrote: "I believe we should claim certain rights for the children and labour for their universal recognition, so that everybody--not merely the small number of people who are in a position to contribute to relief funds, but everybody who in any way comes into contact with children, that is to say the vast majority of mankind--may be in a position to help forward the movement."[11]

The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually.

The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the child that is backward must be helped, the delinquent child must be reclaimed, and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succoured.

The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress.

The child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood, and must be protected against every form of exploitation.

The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of its fellow men.[4]

In November 1959, the UN General Assembly altered Jebb's initial criteria in order to produce the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. This consisted of ten non-binding principles for states to follow in order to work in the best interests of the child. However, this 1959 declaration was not legally binding and was only a statement of general principles and intent.[12] In 1989, however, it was adopted by the UN General Assembly. On 2 September 1990 it became international law.[12]

The Convention consists of 54 articles that address the basic human rights that all children are entitled to: the right to survival; development to the fullest; protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and full participation in family, cultural and social life.[12] The four core principles of the convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.

Today, the Convention serves as the basis for all of Save the Children's work. It has been signed into law in nearly every country around the world, except South Sudan and the United States.[13][14]

The Every One Campaign was started in October 2009 as a result of the Millennium Development Goals created in 2000. The fourth goal aims to reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. Save the Children is working to achieve this goal through their Every One Campaign and their seven step program stating:[16]

The Every Beat Matters campaign, started in August 2012,[17] aims to end preventable child deaths. Every year, more than 7 million children die before their 5th birthday, largely due to preventable and treatable causes like pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria.[18] As part of the campaign, OneRepublic created the new song "Feel Again". Lead singer Ryan Tedder was inspired to write the song by listening to heartbeats of children in need in remote villages in Malawi and Guatemala.[19] Proceeds from the sale of “Feel Again” on iTunes[20] will benefit Save the Children, which trains frontline health workers to save children’s lives around the world. In developing countries, frontline health workers are often the only link to health care for children who live beyond the reach of hospitals and clinics. They can provide a range of proven, lifesaving services including maternal and newborn care, child health, and management of chronic and communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, AIDS and diabetes. Yet according to the World Health Organization, there is a global shortage of at least one million frontline health workers.[21]

In 2014 to mark the three year anniversary of the Syrian civil war Save the Children released a campaign video about what life would be like for British kids if a civil war erupted in London.[22] The video reached over 20 million views in less than a week.[23] The ad has been described as "powerful"[24] and "unsettling".[25]

Save the Children is an international umbrella organization, with 30 national organizations serving over 120 countries.[26]

All members of the alliance are bound by the International Save the Children Alliance Bylaws which includes The Child Protection Protocol and Code of Conduct. These set a standard for common values, principles, and beliefs.[27]

The Save the Children website states that the member organizations work towards achieving four key initiatives:

Secure quality education for 8 million children affected by armed conflict.

Expand and improve our presence in countries of strategic importance.

Create a stronger voice for children where more than one Member has programmes by integrating country operations.

Become the emergency response agency for children worldwide by improving disaster preparedness and response capacity so that we can best deliver immediate and lasting improvements to children

Save the Children helps to fund, and is aided with funds raised by, the national will-making scheme Will aid, in which participating solicitors waive their usual fee to write a basic will and in exchange invite the client to donate to charity.[28] Save the Children collaborates with other NGOs in Family Tracing and Reunification.[29]

In 1969, Save the Children UK commissioned film director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett to make The Save the Children Fund Film.[30] The resulting film was unacceptable to the organisation because they felt it presented their work in an unfavourable light.[31] Eventually a legal agreement was arrived at which involved the material being deposited in the National Film Archive.[31][32] In 2011, roughly 42 years later, it was shown to the public for the first time in decades.[31][33]

In July 2011, a fake vaccination program by the CIA was unmasked.[34] It then emerged that Dr. Shakil Afridi, the person organising the CIA's "vaccinations", had claimed that he was a Save the Children employee. In May 2012, Save the Children's country director for Pakistan, David Wright, revealed that the organisation's work had been badly disrupted ever since Afridi had made his claim, with medicines held up for long periods at airports, staff unable to get visas, and so forth. Wright also charged that the CIA had breached international humanitarian law and risked the safety of aid groups worldwide.[35] "It was a setback, no doubt," said Dr. Elias Durry, the World Health Organization's polio coordinator for Pakistan, a few months later.[36] Later that year, in September, it was reported that the Pakistani government had requested Save the Children's foreign staff to leave the country,[37] In January 2013, the Deans of twelve top U.S. schools of public health sent a letter to President Obama protesting against the entanglement of intelligence operations in public health campaigns. The letter describes the negative and lasting impacts of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) use of a fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2011, which exacerbated the already persistent public mistrust of vaccines in the country.[38]

The CIA's "vaccination program" sparked a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan against dozens of aid and health workers associated with polio eradication campaigns, with the UN-backed polio-vaccination drive repeatedly halted as a result.[39][40][41] In May 2014, the Obama administration announced that they would no longer use vaccination programs as a cover for CIA activities.[41]

Pakistani investigators said in a July 2012 report that Dr. Shakil Afridi met 25 times with "foreign secret agents, received instructions and provided sensitive information to them."[42] According to Pakistani reports, Afridi told investigators that the charity Save the Children helped facilitate his meeting with US intelligence agents although the charity denies the charge. The report alleges that Save the Children's Pakistan director at the time of the incident, Michael McGrath, introduced Afridi to a western woman in Islamabad and that Afridi and the woman met regularly afterwards.[43][44][45]

On June 11, 2015, Pakistani authorities ordered all Save the Children workers to leave Pakistan within 15 days, and the organisation's office in Islamabad was closed and padlocked.[46]

In 2014, Tony Blair was given Save the Children's Global Legacy Award by the leadership of the US arm of the charity at a gala dinner in New York.[47] A furious protest letter condemning the award was signed by over 500 Save the Children staff, who said it was "morally reprehensible" and jeopardised the organisation's credibility.[48][49] The episode raised questions about the links between those who had given the award and those close to Blair.[50]